NZ OPERA'S BUNGA-BUNGA VERDI: Rigoletto in Berlusconi's Rome

Ten days out from Christmas and little
more than a fortnight before the 2012 Sydney Festival opening night
and director Lindy Hume seems almost unnaturally relaxed.

Might have
been the massage, she laughs.

At this point, aside from the usual
crises which hit at the last minute, she admits there isn't a lot she
can do but let things play out for this – her third and final –
festival as director.

While her predecessors all extended
their three-year contracts and she has loved the experience, Hume is candidly itching to get out.

As someone who graduated in arts
administration and opera production (but was “a terrible dancer”),
she says she “misses being in the rehearsal room”.

“The interesting thing about this
[Sydney] job is it so huge you can't be directing other things. This
is too full-on, it is a straight-up, full time job.”

But now – the festival behind her –
she is out there, back in the rehearsal room as director of Opera
Queensland (“part-time which I am thrilled about”) . . . and directing
of the forthcoming NZ Opera production of Verdi's Rigoletto (see
dates below).

And this classic story of the venal,
powerful and corrupt Duke of Mantua and his lustful urges, is no
ordinary production.

“Well, it's set in Berlusconi's
cabinet,” she says laughing loud and long.

“So that's a start.”

Yes, she admits she was “pissed off”
when the notorious Italian prime minister stepped down in November
last year, “but by the time we get it on stage he'll have done
something else. He'll be back.”

She directed a previous but rather
unsatisfying production of Rigoletto, in Houston where she inherited
the setting, but this contemporary setting struck her as exciting and
even a little obvious.

“Every time I looked at Silvio
Berlusconi's bunga-bunga parties and his crazy world I thought,
'There is Rigoletto'. There is your corrupt, violent, ridiculously
fake-tanned duke with his mafia connections and his media empire, who
couldn't give a shit and had women everywhere, underage women,
putting women in his cabinet . . .

“It just seemed like an opera to me,
so when [NZ Opera general director] Aidan Lang rang me about it, I
said, 'Can I do it in Berlusconi's cabinet?' and in the same phone
conversation we agreed to do it.

“The whole thing is recognisably
contemporary. It is a very elegant production, uses video and
contemporary theatre-making technologies, and is very cool.”

With stage design by Melbourne's
Richard Roberts with whom she has worked previously, Hume is excited
about this edgy treatment of the opera. It is one of the productions
which has seduced her back into a world she has felt removed from.

“I can't honestly put my hand on
heart and say I'm going back without trepidation. I am a very
different person and programmer now, and bring a very different
philosophical view about audiences and community. I think however I
was always inclined it the direction of looking beyond the confines
of the opera community.

“The problem is that opera has to
make itself relevant to people, and that for me is the big challenge.
It's also however still a place where simply extraordinary music and
performances can happen, and it's about sharing that.”

In her roles as festival director and
her travels Hume has encountered worlds of music and performance
beyond those which most opera people and companies normally
encounter. She speaks as easily and enthusiastically about the
ambitious stagings by the American alt.rock band Lambchop as she does
about the thrilling beauty and hypnotic power of The Manganiyar
Seduction from Rajasthan.

She has seen the epic narratives and
grand scale of work by artists across the whole spectrum which can
only be described as “operatic”. For many indie artists and
performers, she says, their thinking is often on a huge scale and is
simply a different version of what it is that she has done.

“What I want to do will be about
opening that up. The 'hard core opera experience' is just one of many
possibilities in the scope of an opera company. I'd like to get Lyle
Lovett to write me an opera,” she says, namechecking the American
country singer. “He's got such fantastic urban poetry that no one
else has touched on.

“Opera people need to get out to
different kinds of programmes – and opera also needs to be in that
space.”

A scan of Hume's career – 50 operas
in Australia, productions in Europe and the States, and Lucia di
Lammermoor in New Zealand in 2007 – suggests if anyone has the
vision and energy to be restlessly creative and ambitious for the art
of opera, it is her.

She sees classic operas in the manner
of Shakespeare's plays, malleable material which can be made exciting
and relevant while still being loyal to their greater truths. And
she's itching to do it in Queensland, New Zealand and elsewhere.

“I'm looking forward to what they
call 'a portfolio career' where I do a bunch of different things,”
she laughs and says by being only part-time in Queensland she can
explore other opportunities.

“I love Brisbane which has a boldness
and audacity, and an appetite for modernity. That's a good headspace
for me to be in.

“But I'm hoping for a more strategic
relationship between New Zealand Opera NZ and Opera Queensland, and
I'm talking to Aidan about that. We are really excited about the
possibilities of sharing productions and ideas, of being more
cognisant of the broader Australasia region.

“It doesn't make any sense for
Australia and New Zealand to be so separate culturally.”

And she should know. As I'm leaving we
stop and chat about certain restaurants on Ponsonby Road where she
feels right at home, and of the Christmas lights down Franklin Rd
which she just loves.

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